Thursday, June 23, 2005

A mad Snagley rant.

The supernova remnant N 63A is a member of N 63, a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Visible from the southern hemisphere, the LMC is an irregular galaxy lying 160,000 light-years from our own Milky Way galaxy. The LMC provides excellent examples of active star formation and supernova remnants, many of which have been studied with Hubble.

Can you believe that they are going to discontinue the Hubble telescope in favor of going back to the moon, and then to Mars? I think of this as a giant step backwards.We will spend an extraordinary amount of money sending someone to the moon. And it is true that we will make many technological breakthroughs doing so but, jeeze Louise it would be nice to use that money for something that the everyday person could benefit from quickly and directly. Like feeding some people, and paying some of this national debt that we are leaving or our children and grandchildren to have to sacrifice to pay for. Or we could spend it to invent a gasless vehicles so we can become less dependent on the Middle East for oil and then we could leave them to their own devices and not be concerned the next time they start killing each other.

I am in favor of going to the moon and to mars, those of you that know me know that I love astronomy and B.S. like that. But lets spend our money on getting things into shape before we go and spend more money on frivolous stuff. In my family we will not buy a Lotus until we have the house paid for, and I do want a lotus. But when we can afford it without sacrificing my children’s future I will buy a snazzy sports car, or by then I may want something else, but my point is lets get earth squared away before worrying about the dang moon.